STATEWAY'S GARDEN

Before they were torn down in 2007, the Stateway Gardens public housing projects on the south side of Chicago were known for being a hotbed of poverty, drugs, gangs, and crime. But for some, like Tracy, the shy, intelligent protagonist at the center of STATEWAY, it's home.

Set in the mid-1980s, STATEWAY gives the reader an intimate look at the hopes, dreams, failures, and fortunes of Stateway's residents through a nostalgic and sensitive eye. Through Drain's delightfully complex and playful prose, we see another side of what we grew to know as "the projects."

STATEWAY is a coming-of-age story told in short stories, through the lens of a childhood made rough by the crush of poverty and lack of safety, with the crack epidemic a looming specter ahead. And yet, through young protagonist Tracy's experiences, Jasmon Drain reveals a thriving community within the massive buildings that was in some ways heaven for a young boy. And though Jasmon Drain's STATEWAY takes a refreshingly gentle and intimate look at the ecosystem of the building Tracy grows up in, there's darkness in these pages too - in Tracy's older brother, who flirts with danger in ways Tracy witnesses but can't control, in his mother, whose tough exterior and difficulty to please drives Tracy's desire to succeed.

Jasmon Drain's STATEWAY is a slender but powerful book whose impact will linger long after you've been surprised by these stories.

Jasmon Drain is a 2010 and 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee. He was a finalist in the Terrain and Tidal Fiction Review fiction contests, and a Notable Story of the Year (2013) in the Gemini Magazine fiction contest. He has been published in Bird's Thumb, The Chariton Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Ginosko Magazine, Indian River Review, The Jet Fuel Review, Lit Up Magazine, My Story Lives Magazine, New Purlieu Review, New Sound Magazine, The Quotable Magazine, Reverie, Sliver of Stone Magazine, Specter Literary Magazine, Tidal Basin Review, The Vermillion Literary Project, and theWilderness House Literary Review, among others. He is a graduate of the MFA program at Chicago State University and lives in Chicago. STATEWAY is his first novel.